christian

host of Seeing Clearly

[christian @cxgonzalez]

intuition-maxxing

[christian @cxgonzalez]

the argument for objective morality

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@fluxtheorist greatest game of soccer ever played tbh

but it doesn’t have to stick permanently, only for a couple weeks

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@ZOEMFOSSE all of my life changing pivots came from just getting tired of my own bs and locking back in

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@RafaRuizdeLira @TrueSlazac tpot gets funneled into the insta industrial meme page complex frequently

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@samhbarton lots of fake data but to the extent it's real it's almost certainly bc they walk into town to get a beer w their friends on a tuesday

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@wereness @wispem_wantex analogy doesn't hold
https://t.co/GOueOKeNT4

[christian @cxgonzalez]

cheap offshore labor doesn't double in capabilities every 7 months

[christian @cxgonzalez]

cheap offshore labor doesn't double in capabilities every 7 months

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

Narrative violation: AI is creating engineering jobs

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@nosilverv "do what for you feels like play but for others feels like work"

[♡s♡ @sun_girlxo]

NYC, I’m booking photoshoots!

I’ve loved being behind a camera for as long as I can remember. Few things bring me more joy than taking one look at someone and immediately knowing how to bring out their best features. It’s like creating magic.

Portfolio: https://t.co/cQtrJ6iBCo

[Richard Ngo @RichardMCNgo]

The AI safety community constructed a memeplex in which “taking AGI seriously” was a prerequisite for being a serious and good person. When inside this memeplex (as many at Anthropic, some at OpenAI, and a few at DeepMind are) your vision narrows until the world feels extremely constrained. The whole future seems to flow through the “one ring” of controlling recursive self-improvement. And so even when you worry about AI itself seizing that one ring, you can’t generate better strategies than trying to control it yourself (directly via an AGI company, or indirectly via AGI governance).

I’m not saying this is a pure hyperstition. There’s a core truth underlying this perspective: AI will become extremely intelligent and capable, much more than it is today. But the current world is much more spacious and human-empowering than the future which Eliezer originally envisioned (a “brain in a box in a basement” taking over the world by surprise). And it would be even more spacious if this memeplex weren’t active. For example, Satya and Mark and Sundar only started taking AGI seriously because OpenAI forced them to—and even now they don’t really believe in superintelligence—and even if they did they couldn’t get most of their employees on board. Imagine how chill a “race” between Microsoft and Meta and Google would have been, compared with what we have today: Dario and Sam deep in the “one ring” memeplex while also personally loathing each other.

So the one ring memeplex has an escalating life-cycle. It infects people by letting them harness the narrative that they’re good people for taking AGI seriously, and that making other people take AGI seriously is a boon for the world (despite how terribly that’s gone so far). Then it shuts off their imagination—any sparks of creativity or plans that don’t steer towards the one ring are quickly shut down. Instead they make ChatGPT or the METR graph or other recruiting tools for the memeplex. And yes, they’ll acknowledge that previous versions of the memeplex were too extreme, and led to overly constricted action. But we don’t have time to worry about that, they’ll say, because AGI is coming by 2027/2028, and that’s the end of history. Somehow, though, almost everyone with that view has only a vibes-based definition of AGI. They don’t believe in Dyson spheres by 2028, or self-replicating nanotech by 2028, or brain emulations by 2028. They mostly can’t make concrete predictions, except that it’ll be enough AI that it puts all their plans on a deadline. (Shout-out to @DKokotajlo and @paulfchristiano though, who do make concrete predictions about things going crazy soon.)

It seems very hard to break out of this memeplex without just giving up. David Holz is maybe the world champion of that—the only person who was in a position to race for AGI and consciously turned away. Various agent foundations researchers have carved out space to think real thoughts, not the kind of panicky stabbing in the dark that usually passes for safety research. A few others (e.g. Salamon, Hoffman, Vassar, Andre, Sahil, Davidad) are pursuing more unusual paths. And of the people who burned out, I expect some will reorient to doing creative thinking.

For others, the main takeaway: yes, the future of AI will be wild. But so far it’s increased peak human agency, and openness to this trend continuing over the next decade will allow you to start creating something worth creating.

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@chrislakin @RichardMCNgo is this coming from experience? my impression is they're enjoying what they see as important, high impact and lucrative work with a bunch of smart collaborators

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@pridesai post-post rat

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@sunriseoath where are you getting this idea that the point of christianity is "winning"?

[christian @cxgonzalez]

Parfit called this the Triple Theory and some of you laughed

[Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ 【十】 @sunriseoath]

The trauma of the Golden Rule poster.

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@sunriseoath wouldn't this require the masons retconning the Gospels?

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@sunriseoath why?

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@moonbeamdreams_ lower frequency makes it a Decision, higher frequency makes it just Something You Do

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@pensandpoison i just got in an argument today defending the idea of the Canon but i have no idea what this tweet could mean

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@tszzl @WestsideLAGuy 100% accurate. top of the food chain are buy side front office guys at private credit or family offices. IB is behind that and quant doesn't even register in normie circles

[christian @cxgonzalez]

@esha_hq hmu when you do and i'll give you recs